


Repaired, Not Healed

by Lost_Elf



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hospitals, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Sad, Sad with a Happy Ending, Short, Sickfic, Terminal Illnesses, and the ending is not that happy, not the best supportive partner, tbh Hank is an ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_Elf/pseuds/Lost_Elf
Summary: Connor knew that he is dying, but he didn't tell Hank. He just didn't want his partner to be sad. But Hank just won't give up on him. Androids are meant to live for hundreds of years, so why not Connor?
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 91





	Repaired, Not Healed

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new to this fandom, and I decided to give this pairing a try. Sickfic is a good beginning, right? I won't pretend that my writing is great, but I like how this turned out anyway.
> 
> This happens after some good ending when CyberLife is turned into something good.

Four years into their relationship, and Hank could still remember the beginnings. How unreal it felt to look into Connor’s eyes and see the same emotions as he felt. Love, longing, happiness.

The Lieutenant cursed all those memories, but they just kept coming.

* * *

“Don’t you ever sleep?” he would ask Connor, finding him in the kitchen cooking breakfast and lunch instead of staying in bed with Hank. He didn’t want to admit it yet, but he didn’t like the fact that Connor would leave the bed as soon as his boyfriend fell asleep, leaving to do whatever androids did at night.

“I can go into sleep mode while I’m charging, but I don’t sleep and dream like humans do, no,” the dumbass answered.

Hank knew that, he was just trying to manipulate the conversation in the right direction. “Well, androids charge every three days, right? Why not charge in bed?”

“That’s correct,” Connor nodded slightly. “However, I’m CyberLife’s most advanced prototype. I’m equipped with a prototype of a new kind of battery, allowing me to last fifteen days without charging. I like to charge weekly, just to be sure. I can lay in bed with you while I charge on Wednesday.”

While Hank was proud of his ability to come up with a snarky come-back to almost anything on spot, he was left with raised eyebrows and mouth open without speaking. _Fucking androids._ He would have to trick Connor to stay in bed with him some other time, try a different approach.

* * *

 _Fucking androids_ , he thought as he contemplated the bottle of whiskey in his hand. He hadn’t touched alcohol in two years. It was a painful, long process, but he had Connor to motivate him. They got rid of all the alcohol in the house, so Hank had to get some on his way to the CyberLife Tower.

* * *

Over the years, Connor learned to understand Hank’s need for contact, even when asleep. He liked to touch and be touched, but he didn’t know what did the man see in closeness that he couldn’t even notice when he is unconscious.

Connor charged in the bed every Wednesday, entering sleep mode. On the other days, he laid next to Hank, blinking into the darkness. He often used the time to run calculations or simulations, to process data or go through evidence again and again, focusing on unlikely connections.

More than once, Hank was woken up in the middle of the night by the whirring of some of Connor’s biocomponents, his loud and quick breathing when some of it overheated and his cooling system needed to speed up, or lack of breathing and overall stillness when he forgot to act human, too focused on his task. Hank usually grumbled a few curses and went back to sleep.

* * *

Connor seemed to drop this habit later into their relationship, using more nights to charge, Hank noted, remembering.

He opened the bottle and took a huge gulp. The city moved around him as they neared the destination, everything covered in snow, dark, cold. Nature’s a fucking poet.

* * *

Yesterday afternoon, Connor left work early, complaining about some glitches and technical problems. It made Hank so angry that he screamed at his partner, right in the middle of the office. It’s not that he didn’t want Con to leave. The problem was that Connor was obviously having some problems for at least fourteen days, running his inner diagnostics every couple minutes. He refused to visit CyberLife or any other technician about it, though, and didn’t tell Hank what’s going on, even when he pried.

The policeman was still angry when he came home in the evening. He was determined to drag Connor to CyberLife by his ear if he didn’t solve his problem by the end of the week. But as he walked through the house, grumbling, Sumo’s whining caught his attention and pulled him to the bedroom. Connor was on the bed, charging.

“He’s asleep, you big dumb dog!” Hank grumbled and pulled him away, closing the door, even though noise wouldn’t wake the android.

Connor woke up later that evening, sitting with Hank through dinner, though he was silent, obviously thinking. His LED kept fleshing yellow, sometimes even red, but when Hank asked about it, he merely turned his head away from him as not to worry him. “Just some android problems,” he said. “Can we watch _Androids: The Awakening_ tonight?”

Of course there were movies filmed about the revolution. And of course one of them was Connor’s absolute favourite. Hank liked it too, mainly because the RK900 model that portrayed his partner in the movie looked exactly like his Connor, and the actor that portrayed him was at least twenty years younger. On every poster, they looked badass together.

“Yeah, sure…” he nodded. Connor got everything ready by the time Hank finished his meal, even popcorn, which was a miracle, because he hardly ever supported Hank’s desire for unhealthy foods. But not long into the movie, the android yawned and decided to go to bed. It was disconcerting for two reasons – mainly, androids don’t yawn, and secondly, Connor knows that Hank knows, so that was either a very weak lie, or there was something seriously wrong with him if he believed that Hank would eat that up. But the android was already plugged in and unconscious by the time Hank shut off the TV and lights, and got to bed.

* * *

Hank took another gulp, unsure whether he wanted the taxi to go slower, so he could drink more before he was forced to face the reality, or faster, so he got there sooner.

* * *

Connor didn’t prepare Hank’s breakfast or lunch that day, not that Hank ever asked him to. The android did it because he wanted to, and to pass time. But that day, he rose from the bed only after Hank was already done with his coffee and morning routine. The android was fully clothed and ready for work, but his LED flashed red, and before Hank could even form a concerned question, Connor’s movements slowed down.

Hank helped him get back on the bed and called CyberLife, swearing up a storm to send someone immediately, else he showed them the real end of the world. He also called Markus, Simon and that one RK900 that Connor grew close to, his android friends, asking them if they knew what’s going on. But nobody told him anything, even though they obviously knew, giving him concerned looks and asking about how long it’s been going on like this.

* * *

Heartless bastards, all of them! Not even the technicians at CyberLife that stabilized Connor told him, insisting that android rights and privacy, and blah blah blah, can’t go against the patient’s wishes, like Connor was a human on his deathbed with cancer, and not an android with a glitch.

Connor woke up for seventy-five seconds, giving his boyfriend a weary smile and a vaguely reassuring _everything would be alright_. It wouldn’t. Because Hank finally learned that Connor’s battery was dying, and he really was on his deathbed.

* * *

The taxi stopped, and Hank paid silently and exited, bottle still in hand. He took another huge gulp as he passed the security gates, uncaring about the wary looks the guards gave him. He walked to the elevators and pressed the button like he was there a thousand times, not just two or three. That must’ve been the alcohol helping.

Android hospital. What a funny concept.

They only had ten or so beds there, because all android problems could be solved on spot. Broken limb? Replaced within minutes. Glitching hand? Calibrated within an hour. A virus? Well, some were erased immediately, some required a longer stay, so the virus could be identified and dealt with. Malfunctioning biocomponents sometimes required a long stay, as the hospital had to wait for a replacement to arrive if it wasn’t in stock, but even that wasn’t anything concerning.

Stopping in front of the door, Hank took a last gulp of the whiskey and left the bottle on the floor, not wanting his partner to see it. He walked in and immediately regretted it, because what he saw… He couldn’t handle that.

Connor was smiling at him, though his eyes betrayed that on the inside, he felt almost as shitty as Hank. He didn’t seem to mind all the wires and cables leading in and out of his body, nor the fact that his back was open and his body was held by two mechanical arms, so he wouldn’t move and unplug some of the wires that kept him alive. For now.

“Hi,” he waves his hand as much as he can, which isn’t much, because it is connected to a machine that pumps thirium through his veins instead of his pump, that got too damaged by the unstable flow of energy that Connor’s body supplied. Hank is painfully aware that it is the android version of a heart failure.

“Hey,” he grumbles, not bothering to mirror his partner’s excitement. All the nurses/technicians leve the room, giving them privacy. There were at least five people taking care of the android. Androids are supposed to outlive humans, living for at least two hundred years. Connor is an exception, and so they put a lot of effort into saving him. Judged by the fact that he is even more gutted than when Hank last saw him, they aren’t achieving anything.

“You are still angry,” the android noted, all the forced smiles and positivity leaving his face. Hank wanted nothing more than to hug him and tell him that it’s not right, but it was right, and hugging was out of question anyway. Instead, he carefully stepped over the many wires leading to the bed and sat on a chair that one of the technicians left there.

Connor’s LED is permanently red now, but it flickers a little faster as he takes a breath. “You drank alcohol,” he notes, eyes falling to his lap. At least his legs still look normal, covered by fake skin and white cotton sheets. A few blue smudges disturb the peaceful look of it, and Hank has to look away.

“How long did you know?” he asks. There are so many questions he wants to ask, and he chose the one that hurts the most. He wishes for the bottle again.

Connor’s voice is weak, soft, full of guilt. “I’ve known about the problem ever since I was created,” he admits. “I was never meant to last. A prototype… The battery was estimated to last three years. It’s a miracle I got to live so long before it started failing.”

“How long since it started failing?”

It hangs in the air for a minute before Connor finally answers. “I have known that it’s nearing for three weeks, but the deterioration started almost nine months ago.”

All Hank can do is murmur _for God’s sake_ and look longingly at the door. Hopefully, nobody will pick the bottle up and throw it away before he gets to it.

“Did they come up with something already?”

Silence spreads in the room again. They didn’t.

Just as Hank considers leaving – not that he doesn’t want to be with his boyfriend when he is— when— But he _can’t._ He can’t go through this again. A pale body on a hospital bed, close to no chance of survival, and only a bunch of random people to help, no professional. It feels like… Oh God. It’s exactly like with Cole.

“Hank?”

Connor’s voice doesn’t reach through his bubble of misery, but his cold hand does. The grip is weak and fingers trembling, but it’s there. It’s still there.

“Con, I—” He doesn’t know what to say. What is there to say, really? He could blame him from keeping the truth from him, but what point is there to that? He could tell him how much he loves him… But Connor knows, and he still chose to— _to just fucking give up!_

“Hank… Your blood pressure is dangerously high.”

Back in the days, this phrasing would piss him off to no end. _Fucking androids_ , he would say. But this is no stupid android; this is Connor, his partner, friend, lover.

“I can’t lose you, Connor,” he whispers. “I just… What am I gonna do without you?”

“They are trying to save me,” the android argues lightly. As if on cue, some of the technicians or nurses walk back into the room to check on the tubes and cables connected to his body. Hank is not sure which is worse to watch – his lover’s body taken apart and on display, or his pained face betraying discomfort as his literal insides are touched.

“Eyes on me, Connor,” Hank reaches out, nudging his chin up. “That’s it. Everything’s gonna be alright. Just… breathe through it or something.”

Being gentle doesn’t come naturally to Hank anymore, but somehow, whatever is left in him, he can give it to Connor. Because no matter how angry he is, he still loves that man.

The _man_. Connor is a person. How hard can it be to transplant an organ? It’s not even as hard in humans, and Hank had seen Connor take out his bio-components and reinsert them again.

He feels stupid for not bothering to ask sooner, but he probably should. “What’s happening? Why can’t they just get you a new battery? If it was a prototype, then put the real thing in now…”

The android gives him one of his soft smiles, sincere and innocent. “I thought you’d never… Never mind. It’s… It’s more complicated than that.” He stops for a second as something in his open backside flashes and lets out a few sparkles, and it looks like he is literally breathing through pain now. Hank hopes the part about not feeling pain is still true. “The model was never launched in the end. It doesn’t exist. And my circuits aren’t compatible with any other line.”

“But there must be plans, instructions how to create that thing, right?! That can’t just get lost!” He turns to the technicians this time, as if they are the ones stopping them from solving this.

“They are working on it, Hank…” Connor assures him. “They have been trying to reconstruct it for some time now, but… It takes too long. I thought I would last a little longer.” Remorse appears in his eyes, but there is this thing too, the emotion you only see in terminally ill patients. Acceptance. “I started preparing too late. I relied on luck and… I don’t know what I was thinking. It gets difficult to think when I’m feeling all those emotions freely.”

“Tell you what – you weren’t thinking at all!”

Even then, acceptance. Hank can be mad, and scream all he wants, but Connor will just sit there and slowly die. Breathing through pain or shocks or whatever androids feel. Because Hank told him to, and for once, Connor follows orders. Trying to please Hank, make him less unhappy. Dumbass.

“Connor, I— Can’t you just hold on for a little longer? They are working on it, right?” One of the technicians nods, and Hank flashes him an angry glare before turning back to Connor. “You just hold on, they’ll get you a new battery, and everything will be alright…”

* * *

Of course, nothing is alright, but the scientists do whatever is in their power to keep Connor alive for a little longer. The CyberLife engineers haven’t been able to reverse engineer the battery yet, much less remove the fault that caused it to run out, but they were able to produce compatible bio-components.

The android is awake 24/7, the energy that keeps him alive not allowing him to enter sleep mode, and so Hank takes time off at work and stays with him as much as he can. Sometimes, he gets a little in the way of the technicians or Connor’s friends who also come to visit him, but his partner doesn’t seem to mind. He is always smiling when Hank talks to him or holds him, and when he passes out on the edge of his bed, getting some well-deserved sleep, and Connor strokes his long silver hair. Not once does he have to turn to alcohol to fall asleep, because he is exhausted.

More and more of Connor’s bio-components and inner circuits burn out every day to be replaced, until there are more systems keeping him alive outside of his body than inside. Only his head and the upper part of his chest are untouched, the rest connected to wires and tubes, open, gutted, dripping blue blood occasionally as more and more inner mechanisms give out. The android wouldn’t admit it, but Hank is sure that Connor hates being taken apart like that. He is stripped of his skin, body parts and dignity.

The policeman makes sure to remind his partner that he loves him and wants nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with him. That’s probably the only reason Connor is still holding up. So his boyfriend wouldn’t be sad.

By a miracle, probably, Connor lives long enough for the new prototype to be finished. He doesn’t tell Hank at first, not when the lieutenant walks through the door in the morning, not when he comes back from lunch. Hank notices that something new troubles his partner when he wakes up after falling asleep in the chair again. Connor is awake, as always, tears in his eyes, waiting to be shed.

They don’t fight anymore, even though it’s highly infuriating that the android kept the good news hidden from him. Until he understands that it’s not good news, not really.

“Android surgery, huh?” he smirks wryly. “You just had to have something special…”

“They’ll shut me down, replace all bio-components and deteriorated body parts, reboot and… hope my memory core isn’t compromised in the meantime. It’s… pretty much like a high risk surgery, isn’t it?”

“Are you scared?”

Connor would probably never admit fear out loud, not even when he deviated. Maybe it was pride, maybe something else. Even now, he blinked a few times as he tried to find a better way to say it than directly.

“My personality could get compromised, all my memories lost… What if I forget… something important?” _Like us_. “It’s certainly not a nice thought… to wake up someone else… missing something… If something goes wrong—”

“It won’t.”

“Hank, the chances that everything goes smoothly are—”

“Don’t tell me, Con!” Hank kicks his chair to the ground, not realising that he stood up and is pacing until then. He picks it up again, sitting down and avoiding looking into the brown eyes. “Why can’t— Con, we have to take the risk.”

“I know, Hank. It’s just that— I don’t want to stop existing like this. If I were to forget who I am —” _who you are_ “— I’d rather stop existing at all.”

“And leave me here all alone? Con, don’t you want to spend your life with me?”

Connor’s LED flashes yellow for a second before returning to its permanent state, red. “I already did, Hank,” he says with a smile. “I don’t regret a single second. I love you.”

“But you are leaving me anyway…”

“Hank—”

“No, Con.” The policeman stands up, eyes rooted to the floor. “There is nothing else to talk about. I’ll just… I’ll go now. I can’t be here for this.”

And he would. He would go home to Sumo, poor old dog who only whined and cried these days, missing the android’s presence in the house, and he would feed him and then walk to the nearest store, buy some alcohol and play russian roulette until everything somehow solved itself. If Connor can give up, then so can he.

“I’ll do it, Hank,” the android calls out just as he is walking out of the door. “I’ll let them try it and fix me.”

Hank nods and stands there for a long time as anger slowly leaves him, washed away with those words like dirt in the rain, leaving him light and calm. “Okay,” he says, eventually. “Thank you. I love you, Con.”

* * *

When Cole was going through the surgery, Hank was only half aware. He was only slightly injured, and although he didn’t feel any pain, they gave him something to calm him down. He knew that his son was being operated on, that there was chaos because nobody knew where the damn surgeon was, and that an android had to do it in the end, but his mind was pleasantly empty, filled with fuzz, not letting any worries in.

It wasn’t long before his wife arrived and only saw him for a minute before leaving to look after Cole. And not long after, crying. That, of course, got Hank to stagger on weak legs and go looking for them. He came in just as the android surgeon was leaving the room, blank expression on its plastic face, blood on its clothes. Hank didn’t see how long the android and the assistants tried to save Cole even though it was already helpless. He only saw the machine walk past his crying wife without giving her a glance, completely uninterested. Even the nurse who brought the bad news to the parent cringed at that, frowning at the android’s back.

Hank didn’t touch alcohol since the day he left a bottle by the door of Connor’s room, and he regretted it greatly as he paced in the corridor. It wasn’t even an operation room, because androids don’t need those. No, they just wheeled boxes of body parts to Connor’s room and asked Hank to leave.

Some of Connor’s friends were visibly nervous too. Markus’ leg kept bouncing, and the RK900 whose name Hank still didn’t learn was playing with a pencil in a similar way Connor would play with a coin. It was a little unnerving to watch – an android resembling his partner so much, yet a different person, and so Hank focused on his pacing.

He supposed it was nice that they came personally. That’s what friends do – they care. Hank was never the one to sit in the waiting room with bated breath and wait for the results if one of his colleagues was hurt. He preferred to spend that time in a bar and bring chocolates and flowers the next day, either for the patient or mourning family.  
Connor would appreciate this. He would smile shyly and thank his friends for coming. He couldn’t now, though, because most of his body parts were being replaced while he was deactivated, risking major memory loss.

As hours passed, it started to look like the androids were there for Hank more than for Connor. Markus tried to talk to him, to bring his mind to something different. Simon volunteered to go and check on Sumo. The RK900 peeked into the room through security cameras and told them about the progress. And every single one of Hank’s friends who knew about the situation came and went, comforting him as if Connor was already gone.

It was maddening. One more _hold on_ and _stay strong_ and _Connor was a good guy_ , and Hank will punch someone. Preferably an android, because the stupid machines couldn’t even remain honest to their lovers! Fucking stupid things that can’t even—

“Your blood pressure is dangerously high, Hank.”

* * *

Hank is ready to punch the RK900 that looks like Connor, speaks like Connor, says the same stupid shit as Connor, and _dares_ to inform him about his blood pressure like Connor would. Except it wasn’t the RK900 who said it. The policeman turns around slowly, not believing his own ears until he is reassured by relieved sighs from the other people in the room.

Connor is standing straight, not leaning on the doorframe, not supported by someone else, not carrying an IV drip or using crutches. He’s an android that has been repaired, not a human that was sick. But Hank only sees his partner and lover, not a machine. His Connor, who smiles shyly and walks the remaining few meters to hug him.

“I can finally touch you,” Connor hums, pressing his nose to Hank’s neck. He clutches the back of his jacket and pulls him as close as he deems safe, able to control his strength even after weeks without it. “I missed this.”

“I missed you, you stupid prick!” Hank crushes him in a hug that would probably choke him if he needed breathing the way humans do. Connor smirks and enjoys it, nevertheless.

> _Diagnostic in progress_

He can sense that Hank wants to ask but can’t, and so he tells him what he wants to know. “It went well.”

> _Memory core: 100%_

“They replaced everything that needed to be replaced in time, and the new battery is working.”

> _Diagnostic in progress_

Hank lets go of him, finally gathering his composure. He is what humans call _softie_ when they are alone, but he usually doesn’t let gestures like this slip when there are others present. “You see?” he says. “I knew you would make it. You just mustn’t give up before you even try.”

“Yes, you were right,” he hums, still only really interested in the memory of hugging Hank for the first time in so long.

> _Diagnostic in progress_

“’f course I was! Likes of you are supposed to live for hundreds of years, you can’t die just like that! You’ll outlive me, maybe live to see another revolution or two, who knows. You’ll have a great life.”

> _Diagnostics in progress_

Connor knows by then that he made a mistake. Maybe he should have begun with the facts. Tell Hank that it’s not actually that good, that he’ll—  
Hank takes his hand, intervenes their fingers. That’s one of the gestures he would normally avoid, a gesture that Connor loves. He doesn’t care about Hank’s mumbled threats towards CyberLife and don’t they dare try to end Connor’s line again…

> _Diagnostic in progress_
> 
> _Analysing medical files of Lt. Hank Anderson_
> 
> _Age: 57_
> 
> _Life expectancy: 82_
> 
> _Battery analysis complete. Life expectancy: 26 years_
> 
> _Diagnostic in progress_
> 
> _Battery analysis complete. Life expectancy: 25.8 years_
> 
> _Diagnostic in progress_
> 
> _Battery analysis complete. Life expectancy: 25.5 years_
> 
> _Diagnostic in progress_
> 
> _Battery analysis complete. Life expectancy: 25.5 years_

“Let’s go home now, Hank. I’m safe, I have a new battery, new thirium pump, new almost everything. I will… outlive you all…”

“That’s how it’s supposed to be, Con. You deserve the best.”

> _Diagnostic in progress_
> 
> _Battery analysis complete. Life expectancy: 25.45 years_
> 
> _Diagnostic in progress_
> 
> _Battery analysis complete. Life expectancy: 25.5 years_

He can do this. He can stay in this world long enough. He can watch it change and watch people he cares about grow old. And then he can just… stop fighting. Thirty years are a good life. Connor was never meant to last, but he can stay there just a little longer for Hank. And the lieutenant doesn't have to know.

**Author's Note:**

> You can come chat with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ElfWriting).


End file.
